Political Perceptions: Eagerly Awaiting the Fall Debates

Much attention will be lavished in the next two weeks on the parties’ political conventions, but it’s a good bet that the far more important events in shaping the fall presidential campaign will come a month later—when the three presidential debates begin.

If history is any guide, the debates will be watched by more Americans, and that may be even more true this year given the odd scheduling of the political conventions. Television networks have steadily scaled back coverage of conventions, and the Democrats have in turn shrunk their convention by a full day this year. Perhaps as important, the actual substantive content of conventions continues to erode as they evolve into two long political commercials.